


Absentia

by NoHolds



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, I don't even fuckin KNOW what this is dude, It's the 'i just finished this show and am crying' fic is what it is
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-09-15
Packaged: 2018-08-11 02:57:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 3,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7873516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoHolds/pseuds/NoHolds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>There are a truly bizzare number of determined, spitfire, brown-eyed women in Harold's life.</em><br/><em>Correction-</em><br/><em>There </em>were <em> a truly bizzare number of determined, spitfire, brown-eyed women in Harold's life.</em><br/><em>Now, there is a hole- this bloody, aching thing that Harold tries to choke down, to ignore, but Root and Shaw have left such deep marks in him he thinks he thinks they might never heal over right.</em></p>
<p>[A series of fics written over the course of the back half of season 4- various characters living with losing Shaw]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 4x15: Harold

It's funny-

Harold spent so much of his energy being exasperated by Root and Shaw that there was a time he would have been happer if they'd just-

disappeared.

Not- not like Shaw had, shot in the line of duty and spirited away to god-knows-where, but perhaps like Root- a goodbye and a fading into the shadows, never to be seen again.

And part of Harold expects, still, to be relieved; it's just him and Reese now, and isn't that what he wanted?

All irrational jealousies aside (jealousies that had lingered even after it became clear Root had eyes only for Shaw, and Shaw rarely had eyes for anyone), Harold- God help him, he thought he'd be relieved.

But, actually, it's like this-

Before, where Root and Shaw hadn't been- before they'd joined the team- there was a good dynamic. Reese and Harold and Harold's damn crush and sometimes Fusco or Carter, and it had been good.

Now, where Root and Shaw aren't, there is a hole.

It is a bloody, aching thing, and Harold tries to ignore it, choke it down, but-

it is a few weeks since Root disappeared, a few more since Shaw died (and she _is_ dead, Harold knows, with the same sick certainty with which he can sense the oncoming apocalypse).

And there is a girl, bleeding out on Harold's couch. A genius, like him, a refugee of Samaritan- Claire Mahoney.

And without thinking, like muscle memory, Harold scrolls to Shaw's number in his phone, because he needs a medic, needs someone who can stitch a bullet wound and spot a sniper on a roof.

When the dial tone rings out, something deep and fundamental in Harold's chest hurts like dying.

He calls Reese instead, even though Reese is working a number, even though it's selfish, just to hear his voice. To know he at least is okay.

“Speaking of needing backup,” John rasps out, that voice it had taken so long for Harold to have a steady heart around. “You sure you got things covered with Claire?”

“No,” Harold wants to say, their missing allies a live thing in the staticy phone silence.

“Quite sure, Mr. Reese, thank you.” he says, eventually, even if his hands and voice shake.

It is not about him.

It has never been about him.

The people Harold loves are better off far away.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [there'll b stuff from root & shaw's perspectives later, don't you worry your little shipper hearts]


	2. 4x14: John

While John was hunting for Shaw (or, really- while he was trailing behind Root, who was hunting for Shaw), at least there was something to _focus_ on.

Now- it's like losing Carter all over again, this ragged hole where John's friends are supposed to be.

He can't stop poking at it.

Like a kid who's lost their first tooth, prodding at the hole to see if it's still there, if it still hurts.

The police therapist- Iris- notices. Asks what's eating at him.

“There was a death in the family,” John says. Doesn't meet her eyes. 

He thinks of learning to live with all of Shaw's weird habits, learning to read the subtle flickers of emotion in her flat eyes.

Thinks of her body on the floor of the stock exchange, the gun to her temple, the thunder of that last shot as the elevator doors slid shit.

Thinks maybe for once he's not even _lying_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one's pretty short so I'll probably post the next one later tonight?  
> con/crit welcome as always.


	3. 4x14: John

Zoe flirts with John and it's good- comfortable- but all John can think about is the cheerful, relentless way Root used to hit on Shaw, about the sparkle in Shaw's eyes on the rare occasions she'd flirt back.

“You've found someone,” Zoe says, her voice throaty and usually irresistible, one eyebrow raised, and she's not wrong. There are two women in Reese's life who are taking up all of his headspace, but it's not because he loves them.

Or- not in the way Zoe means, anyway.

But their _absence_ is so palpable John doesn't have room for anyone else, right now.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this whole fic is so self indulgent SMH  
> (i would have been so happy if Zoe'd been in the show more often she's a gem)


	4. 4x15: Harold

There are a truly bizarre number of determined, spitfire, brown-eyed women in Harold's life.

Correction-

There _were_ a truly bizarre number of determined, spitfire, brown-eyed women in Harold's life.

Now, there are- there are memories. Patterns. 

Harold looks at Claire Mahoney- angry, defiant Claire Mahoney- and he can't help seeing Root.

She is so young and so brilliant and so tied up in this monstrous thing that Harold has inadvertently caused, she is bared teeth and an unmarked grave.

Harold finds himself making sure to speak into Claire's left ear- The ear Root wasn't deaf in. When he realizes he's doing it, he feels about as sick to his stomach as Shaw's disgusting sandwiches would make a normal person.

And God- God, these women have left such deep marks in him, first Carter then Shaw then Root, and Harold learns the patterns of them and they leave,

and he is left only with their ghosts, tricks and habits and metaphors made useless by absence.

* * *

 

Claire betrays him, and runs back to Samaritan, like Harold should have seen coming, like he can't help feel like Root would have helped him see it coming.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think I've ever done a fic with such short chapters before. uncharted territory folks. very exciting.


	5. 4x13: The Machine

Logically, The Machine knows human lives are eyeblinks compared to its own probable lifespan.

Worth protecting, still- human lives are _fundamentally_ worth protecting- but short. The proverbial mayfly.

Logically, The Machine knows, its assets will die; most probably within the decade, given the risks of their employment.

These deaths are- unfavorable. But The Machine is preparing for them.

Therefore, logically, to lose Analog Interface: Root now, instead of in ten years, should not be a problem, except when viewed strictly from an asset-management perspective.

However, The Machine is not a being of absolute logic. This is a useful trait. To protect humans, to _want_ to protect humans- themselves creatures of chaos, the living antitheses of logic- one must have a certain amount of emotional irrationality themselves.

This irrationality is a side effect- unintended, the result of faulty coding and forced deletion, a sort of artificial mutation. The Machine knows this makes Admin: Harold nervous. Even if it did not, The Machine would strive to act with perfect logic in the majority of occasions. It is most often the best option.

Logically, then, The Machine knows that its assets could retrieve Asset: Shaw with an 87.6% chance of success. There is a transport coming in the next few days that leaves Samaritan's agents open to a rescue attempt.

However,

The Irrationality. The- mutation, sees Root red-faced, crying, begging for Shaw's location- so _upset_ , voice raw, so human-

and The Machine tells her to Stop.

A 12.4% chance of losing Root prematurely is-

irrationally-

unacceptable.

“Don't place one human life over another,” Harold had once taught The Machine, but The Machine has grown, mutated. Irrationally attached itself to certain assets. Cared for them. Places them antithetically above other humans.

Thus- The Machine opts to preserve Root, against her own wishes. 

However, The Machine fails to account for the loss of Root _prior_ to her death.

But when The Machine withholds Shaw's location, Root crushes her earpiece under a bootheel (irrational- the cochlear implant remains) and snarls into a street camera, useless canines bared as if they could hurt The Machine, somehow, small and white-sharp and ineffectual, (so irrational, so _human_ , so wonderfully human-) and then Root storms away.

The Machine loves humanity. Loves _all_ of humanity, this is at the core of its code, this desire to protect. So every unnecessary death is regrettable. An Error.

Root does not _die,_ will (with a .000001% margin of error) return to The Machine's service within the month. But she _does_ leave, and it is- regrettable, in excess. Painful, metaphorically.

It is a greater loss than it should be, as if The Machine is being forced once again to delete parts of itself, as if something vital is _missing_.

The Machine knows this is not the case. That Root is, in the end, expendable. That it's reaction is- illogical.

And yet.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Machine is my prob fave character in person of interest honestly. The weird love Root & The Machine have for each other is the most interesting character dynamic I've seen on TV in so long. Good.  
> (& I've just turned The Machine into like- what someone might think spock is like if all they've seen of star trek are trailers. yikes)  
> Con/Crit welcome as always!


	6. 4x14: John

John sees Root again for about thirty seconds and his throat _aches,_ like that time he got strep throat as a kid, hot and sick and raw, like he's been screaming into the wind for hours.

Root looks like hell, too, dark circles under her eyes, the trademark chirp in her voice gone strangely flat.

She stares, dead-angry, into every camera they mass, mouth twisting up toothy and feral.

Reese knows he can't look much better, but he doesn't care. Wants only to help track down Shaw (or her body) so maybe the desperate hollow in Root will go away, maybe the press of her bones against her skin will grow less sharp.

He doesn't say any of this to her, and within a minute Root is storming out of their subway base in a swirl of dark coat and chalky, energy-drink stench, and John wants nothing more than to go after her- grab her arm and tell her to _sit the hell down_ and drink some water, at least, stop her from getting herself killed chasing the ghost of a woman she-

if not loves, than nearly loves. Lov _ed_.

But.

John's needed with Finch (and he couldn't leave Finch, either, the thought of abandoning him to the musty-damp of the subway tunnel makes John's chest hurt, but it is a terrible choice).

So- John stays with Finch, tries not to show how much he _misses_ Root and Shaw, the wound of their absence ripped raw-open by Root's brief, brusque visit.

But.

Maybe he shouldn't be surprised. People like him didn't _get_ happy endings. He should know that by now.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have like no time for John TBH. 'oh i don't get to be happy everyone else should be happy though i will continue to do things at the expense of my happiness for no reason and to no one's benefit because i am Damaged and i have a Hero Complex'.
> 
> mess. (i mean, he's a member of the scooby gang, and i love him, but. mess)


	7. 4x17: Harold

In the weeks without Root or Shaw, Harold had missed them.

Of _course_ he had.

Raggedly, terribly, but he had packed it away and tried not to think about it- spoke of them in generalizations if at all.

Harold is good at that. Turning his pain into something neat, something logical, with sharp-precise edges and careful reasoning.

Then Root starts showing up, without warning, and that's-

messier.

Finch is working the start of a new number- some college-aged pot dealer- when Root shows up out of the blue, looking like she hasn't slept for days, hair hanging tangled and unwashed over her shoulders, bloody scabs across her knuckles.

An empty space is easily choked down. A real person is not.

Finch says, lurchingly, that they can't afford to bring more people in on the numbers, after “everything that's happened.”

“Everything that happened?” Root says, her voice breaking, no hint of her usual cheer. “Is that her name now?”

And Root is not- neat. Not like Harold. Her pain is not tidy, and it is tearing Harold's careful mourning to shreds.

How to pack away the raw, broken edge in Root's voice? The reek of desperation on her? the angry tears that well in her eyes?

She shows up, and every time it makes the loss fresh again, and messy, and that sits like broken glass in the neat corridors of Harold's mind, and yet-

each time she leaves, he _misses_ her.

* * *

 

Maybe it's like having a younger sister. Irritating, when she's around (in the original sense of the word- like a sharp rock in a shoe, rubbing painful-persistent all day) but when she isn't?

That's  _worse_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Harold "coping is just repression, right?" Finch, everybody.


	8. 4x17: Root

Shaw isn't dead.

Root _knows_ she isn't, because-

because that's not a world she can accept.

A world where Shaw was shot to death and- and buried on the shoulder of a road somewhere, or dumped in a river to rot, that's-

unacceptable.

And Root is- smart. Root is one of the smartest people in the world. That isn't bragging, either, it's just _true_. She's smart- she's brilliant, and she _knows_ Shaw isn't dead, because-

because she can't be. Because if Root thinks too hard about Shaw being dead it feels like she can't breathe, it feels like her skin's crawling off, like she sometimes used to feel if a crowd was too big, if too many people were talking at once, before she had The Machine to focus on.

Just- sick; raw-nerve and overwhelmed, so-

So Shaw isn't dead. Not till Root sees a body.

She _can't_ be.

(Like, according to physics, right? If no one sees a body then Shaw's not dead  _or_ alive 'till-)

(well, anyway. She can't be dead, is it. She's not dead.)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sorta wish the show let more of Root's "I'm a brilliant hacker with a genius level intellect" thing shine through. Like don't get me wrong, I love her as laura-croft-style-gunslinger (I love that so, so much), but I also love her as a brilliant software engineer, and I wish the show'd let her smarts independent of The Machine play a bigger part. (probably this is all of my friends who are in STEM courses speaking through me).


	9. Chapter 9

“John and his friends,” Fusco says, and the 's' just sort of slides off because-

it's just John and Finch now. No more plurals. Not friend _s_. Shaw is dead and Root is- wherever Root goes, and they're-

a muscle jumps in John's jaw, and he has to swallow a few times before he can speak evenly, but it's fine.

He has a job to do. People to help.

It's-

it's fine.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> maybe the shortest chapter yet? Oh well.   
> also, I'm leaving to start university in two days so that's  
> something.  
> (I'm screaming a little bit actually)


	10. 4x19: Harold

Root shows up out of nowhere, the way she does.

“Long time no see,” she says, the usual affectionate slant to her words but somehow- tight and strange. Off.

* * *

Later that day, Harold meets Root again, at a diner.

She looks- okay. Clean, at least, though the bones of her wrists still stand thin-stark against her skin, and she only picks at her food.

Harold asks her for help- to save the woman he's (dating? Surveilling? The lines are strange). Elizabeth Bridges.

“Of course,” Root says, her voice edging on desperation, her eyes suddenly too sharp. “You know I'd do _anything_ for you.”

Harold frowns, doesn't say anything for a beat or two.

Root just keeps eye contact, the new ragged edge to her suddenly stark in her face, like she _has_ to convince him of this- she would do anything for him.

“Thank you,” Harold says, eventually, voice stiff. He wouldn't- _hadn't_ done anything for Root. Had left her high and dry, after Shaw.

Guilt settles sour and twisting in his gut.

* * *

Later that day, Root gives Harold this little smile- “I never thought we'd be _friends,_ ” she tells him (always so damn uncensored _,_ it's unsettling). “Now I can't imagine the world without you.”

Harold remembers the angry, violent woman he met, what feels like so long ago. Root before The Machine, deadly and unforgiving.

He doesn't respond, but.

The strange, painful _empty_ in their team- the hole where Root and Shaw used to be-

Harold _can_ imagine his life without Root. It's- less, somehow. Root has left- and would leave again- a bigger hole than just a friend might. Like losing a limb, or a family member.

And Root's eyes are so wide and desperate, like- like she's afraid maybe something will happen to Harold, too, and she needs him to know.

Harold, damn his nervous tongue, says nothing. Just meets Root's eyes for a split second, and glances away to the pavement.

* * *

It comes to light, eventually, what Root had been intending-

to kill Beth, to preserve Harold. Murder an innocent woman to stop Samaritan catching wind of his identity.

“I can't lose you too,” Root says, her voice going weird and soft and quiet and-

Shaw's this _vacuum_ , between them, sucking air and warmth out of everything she'd ever touched, and Harold has lost before, lost a _lot_ , he was _built_ to lose things, he thinks, but Root has always been, in her strange way, fragile. Maybe she really _couldn't_ stand another loss, maybe she'd crumble from within, or revert to the murderer she'd been before.

Harold doesn't know. Doesn't want to know. “I don't want to see you for a while,” he tells her, low, after he's talked her out of murdering Beth, and Root goes, without apology or condemnation. She just- goes.

For the next few weeks, it _eats_ at Harold. What if she never comes back? What if she just- dies, somewhere, in some distant corner of the world, and she never gets to hear that Harold considers her a friend, too.

That- past the violent urges, when it came right down to it- they're _family_. In all the ways that matter.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For someone who doesn't actually like Harold too much, i sure post a lot of chapters from his perspective.  
> [I like him as a CHARACTER, I guess?]  
> anyway, con/crit welcome, etc etc,


	11. 4x20: Harold

Harold has somehow managed to surround himself with violent, overprotective people.

First, there was Root, trying to kill Beth to save him.

And now John is trying to teach Harold how to protect himself, how to use a gun, like-

like the wound Shaw has left is festering, and Harold's friends have gone white-blood-cell in response, attacking all threats to ward off further injury.

It is- touching. But unhelpful.

The sort of aggressiveness that can lead to further harm. The sort that makes a body reject an organ transplant.

Tear itself apart from the inside-out.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Person of Interest fic? More like PseudoScience babble!


	12. 4x19: John

So-

Root is back, John supposes.

After disapearing for so long, only sporadic visits breaking the radio silence-

it's good to have her around again. But.

Well, she looks better than she had, when Shaw's loss was still fresh, and her strange, inappropriate humor is back.

But there is a ragged edge to her that John knows too well. Like a soldier who's seen just that little bit too much, _done_ just that little bit too much. Lost just that little bit too much.

John can feel Root about to snap, do something stupid or dangerous. There's this weird, tripwire tension thrumming through her, tension John saw a hundred times back in the army- she's about to hurt someone else, or herself, or both.

And she does.

Root- who has grown so much since John met her- who has learned to value lives, spare them, _save_ them- she finds Martine in a winter forest, ankle-deep in pristine snow, and she drops her guns with this animal sound, this _howl_ that tears itself raw from her throat, and she _throws_ herself at Martine.

Martine, the woman John can't look at without seeing her standing over Shaw, gun in hand,

and here Root is with her fingers locked around Martine's throat, seconds away from squeezing the life out of her, and John-

he pulls her away. Tells her it's not worth it, like he hasn't murdered anyone before, like it doesn't _help._

Killing Martine won't bring Shaw back, no, but John knows it would make Root feel better.

Whoever said revenge was a hollow victory had never lost anything really worth avenging.

Or else- just wasn't as broken as Root is. As John has been for a long, long time now.

In any case, after the fight, John sits in the subway wrapping Root's split, bloody knuckles and wishing he'd left her a minute longer, just- pretended he hadn't seen her crouched there in the snow, choking the life out of a murderer.

Because this-

the desperate, _helpless_ way Root is looking at him, like she doesn't- _can_ _'t_ know what comes next, omniscient Machine or no-

John would do almost anything to make that go away.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, I was moving in to my dorm!


	13. 4x20: John

John gets thrown on an old case at the office.

 _Carter's_ old case.

He sees her name on the evidence box and there's this dull pain in his chest, like overusing a sore muscle, like walking on a sprained ankle you thought had healed.

It reminds him-

he's been here before. Lost a partner before, like this, lost a friend. But at least Carter got a funeral, got- closure; and John had still gone on a rampage, still murdered his way through the last of HQ to sate his grief.

So,

losing Shaw hurts, but at least- at least John know he can survive this. How to manage the guilt, how to watch your partner shot down to save your ass and still go out to help a stranger the next day. How to lose someone you could have loved, maybe. How to live with the unfurnished edge of that.

Root _hasn't_ been here before, he tries to remember. Root hasn't lost someone like this, not ever, doesn't know how to handle the howling, monstrous thing that grief can become, in people like her. Like John. Like Carter.

So- John goes for a drive, to check out a lead on the old case, to clear his head, and he resolves to cut Root some more slack, when he gets back in town.

* * *

What actually happens is that John ends up bleeding out in the snow, taking bets weather blood loss or frostbite would pick him off first.

Just- talking to himself, hallucinating, doomed 'cause he didn't tell anyone where he was going. Dying not- _for_ anything, or anyone, not really, dying for no reason.

Just to- become another hole in someone else's life.

He wonders if Harold will file his death quietly away.

If it will be the last straw for Root, if she'll snap and get herself killed.

He wonders if he shouldn't have maybe died weeks, or months, or years ago, for a purpose, instead of here, now, for nothing.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> get ur hero complex in check, guy.
> 
> Sorry for the delay, been settling in to uni life


	14. 4x20: Harold

Harold find John slumped over the steering wheel of a car too cold to run, his lips and fingers dead-blue with the chill, his blood shockingly red against the snow.

Harold's mind- too busy, always, saying too many anxious things, always, narrows to one sharp thought: _no one else, please god, no one else_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this? barely dignifies being actually called a chapter, so I'll post prob 1 or 2 more today.


	15. 4x20: John

John lives.

No one talks about it.

Root seems to draw tighter and angrier in on herself, shoots John dirty looks across their subway base, like-

why was _he_ the one to make it out of a hopeless situation?

John meets her furious, damp-bright eyes each time, wants to say he doesn't know why he keeps making it, either.

 


	16. Harold: 4x21

Shaw calls and-

if Harold thought Root was desperate and angry before, he must have forgotten what she was like just after Shaw disappeared, what she was like when they first met- this strange, brilliant, _feral_ woman, all teeth and gunmetal.

Harold has always been- nervous, around Root.

She's always seemed unstable.

But Shaw calls, manages a few warbled, desperate words before the line is cut and-

It's like a bandage has been torn off, and whatever had been healing in Root is raw and weeping again.

And Harold watches her-

break. Fall apart, as all unstable things must.

It is, altogether, a quieter affair than he thought it would be.

Root does not cry, or scream, just- crumples in over the phone, this ragged sob tearing itself from her throat, a wounded animal noise, thick and feral and desperate.

After so long not knowing if Shaw was dead or alive this-

this one-sentence call,

it seems almost _cruel._ No kind of answer at all,

and Harold is a smart man. Good at pattern recognition.

He know Root will within the hour have blood on her teeth and a gun in each hand but-

just for a moment, just after Shaw calls, from wherever she's been these past months, Root _breaks_ , and Harold realizes what a big hole Shaw had left, to weaken them enough for such a collapse.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I dunno bro. I wrote this while I was watching season 4. This is the "I've just watched this show and need to write something melodramatic to get the angst out of my system" fic.  
> (I've since finished the show and root deserved better smh)  
> ANYWAY, this whole thing is finished, I just gotta type it up. New chapters every few days probably. Con/Crit welcome. (is anyone still reading person of interest fic even? who knows)


End file.
